DRAWINGS [jaeyong]

[4]

Jaehyun dropped the piece of clothing he was holding and held up his hands as if surrendering. "Okay, tell me," he pressed impatiently.

Her head dropped as she turned on her heel, waving for Jaehyun to follow. "Let's go somewhere else," she said timidly.

The two sat down at the dining room table, Jaehyun anxiously tapping his fingernails on the wood. His mother's posture was rather stiff as she sat down, and she went back to chewing on her lips. She drew in a shaky breath before informing carefully, "Hajoon came over today." Jaehyun's opinion on the man was clear to her when he clenched his jaw and looked away. "Jaehyun," she warned, and the young boy rolled his eyes. "Anyway, he came and—" the woman gulped. "He came and took Donghyuk with him. He said they needed time apart for a while," she spoke in a hushed voice.

Jaehyun slammed his hands down on the wood in a spur of anger before raising from the table and pacing the room, fingers clawing at his hair. His scared mother stood up as well, watching him worriedly. Jaehyun mumbled to himself loudly and irrationally, saying things like "I was supposed to watch him" and "that sneaky bastard." His mom ran over to him, but flinched when Jaehyun suddenly turned to her and yelled, "why did you let him leave?! What if Donghyuk gets hurt? What were you thinking?!" Tears streamed down the woman's face as she reached for Jaehyun, but before touching the boy he rushed to the door and threw on his coat and boots.

"Jaehyun don't think you're going to be leaving this house!" his mom scolded as she ran after him, but the boy was lost in his own world of spite.

"Where did they go?" Jaehyun questioned, but his mom shook her head.

"Calm down! I don't know where they went, but Donghyuk is okay. Hajoon isn't—"

Jaehyun looked at her if she'd said something absolutely ludicrous. "Do you want to know what Donghyuk told me in the car today? He said that Hajoon was 'taking stuff out on him'. Don't condemn me for being fucking enraged," he said, and his mom widened her eyes.

"That's not true, Jaehyun. I've known Hajoon for years," she spoke quietly, voice faltering.

"Well then you're delusional," he hissed before leaving, slamming the door while he was at it.

-

If he was being honest, Jaehyun had no idea where he was going or what he was doing.

All he knew was that he was furious and extremely upset. If he came to terms with this, he'd know that there was no way in hell he'd find Donghyuk anywhere, but his brain was so fried with anger and the need to feel secure that he looked everywhere for them; parks, grocery stores, even alleyways. He drove for miles on the backroads, for whatever reason. His gas in his old car was at E by the time he realized that he wasn't getting anywhere.

Jaehyun sat in his car at the gas station down the road from his house, picking at his fingernails. The sun was starting to go down and the blinding white lights on the ceiling of the station was straining his eyes. He would've played on his phone if it wasn't for his mom calling him every minute, so he shut it off a long time ago and settled with tearing his nails down to the point where they started to hurt.

A roaring headache coursed through him so badly that he figured while he was here he should pick up some pain killers. He got out of his car and jogged to the glass doors of the building, entering with a faint ding. Jaehyun stepped to the back where all the over-the-counter drugs were, and his eyes quickly scanned over them before he found some ibuprofen. He took it off of the metal shelf, then his eyes caught a few hand warmers and he took those as well — it felt like below zero outside.